Monday April 15, 2013

VAVA Voom Preview: Honoring Ann Northrop
by Visual AIDS Staff

Please join us on May 6th for VAVA Voom where we
will be honoring a legendary activist.

If you have seen United in Anger: A History of ACT UP or How to Survive a Plague, you
will recognize the voice, the poise, the ferocity of Ann Northrop. From the
earliest days of ACT UP, she has been a fierce presence of righteous anger,
working with her peers to craft tactics, messages, and demonstrations making
the government take action, pulling the public out of their inaction, and
drawing the media in.

Like many involved with AIDS activism from early on,
Northrop traded the life she could have had, in exchange for the work that
needed to be done. From newsroom to
classroom, Northrop has been formally and informally teaching generation after
generation about HIV/AIDS. Her focus is not just the science or politics, but also the human cost of
the ongoing epidemic.

As we look towards what is needed for the future, we hear
the voice of Northrop echoing in our ear, as it did 24 years ago at the
infamous Stop the Church action in St. Patrick's Cathedral. As she was dragged away by
police, Northrop exhorted parishioners to consider the Catholic Church's response to the AIDS crisis by yelling: “We Are Fighting For Your Lives Too!”

Ann Northrop is a veteran journalist
and activist. After working for many years as a writer and producer in mainstream
journalism at the National Journal, ABC's "Good Morning America," and CBS
News, she quit and went to work as an AIDS educator and educator on
homosexuality at the Hetrick-Martin Institute for Lesbian and Gay Youth. She
has also been arrested many times as a member of ACT UP and Queer Nation, most
famously in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Northrop currently co-hosts the national
cable TV news show, "Gay USA."